


Damage Control

by PechoraFlow



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Happy Hogan Has A Heart, Hurt Peter Parker, I really tried to get the Iron Dad to be natural and yet I think I went over the top, Iron Dad, My First Work in This Fandom, Peter Parker Whump, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, spiderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-01-12 12:40:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18446738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PechoraFlow/pseuds/PechoraFlow
Summary: This was bad.His phone rang, echoing around the small bathroom and causing him to flinch. He answered the phone and put it on speaker without looking at the Caller ID. He grabbed an extra roll of toilet paper, thinking that, if he had a prayer of making it home, he had to at least staunch the blood flow. “Hello?”“Hey, kid, are you still here?”This was worse.Or, after landing the plane on Coney Island in "Spider-Man: Homecoming", Peter isn't as unscathed as he likes to think he is.





	1. Chapter 1

The fire trucks raced by, down below.

Peter watched them, focusing on steadying his breathing as they started to put out the beach that he had left on fire.

He’d tried to put some of the fire out, sure, and the sand was super helpful for that, but then SI people started to show, and he didn’t have his mask on. Besides Happy, none of Mr. Stark’s employees actually knew his identity, and he preferred to keep it that way.

So, instead of helping with the cleanup ( _like a responsible superhero_ , he thought somewhat self-deprecatingly), he sat atop the Cyclone at Coney Island.

May and Ben had brought him here once.

Shaking off that train of thought, he swung himself over the side of the roller coaster, carefully climbing down the wooden beams in an effort to not fall to his death. It was already really late, but, with luck, he’d be getting home at the same time he told May he’d be back.

Though, that might not be feasible at this point, seeing as he was left with no way to get home.

With his right webshooter jammed (probably for the best; his right shoulder was most likely dislocated and his wrist was either sprained or broken), he’d only be able to get home with one arm – and that was ignoring the fact that he had used up the last of his web fluid when he tied up Liz’s dad with the items he was able to salvage from the plane. And it wasn’t like he carried money with him all the time, so he couldn’t take a bus or call a cab.

At least he had his...very _-_ much _-_ cracked _-_ phone, which he managed to grab out of Mr. Toomes’ car before he went into the warehouse.

The warehouse.

_Dust._

_Darkness._

_Water dripping down his face._

_Pillars pinning him below a mountain._

_The groan of shifting metal-_

Nope. Nope. Not going there.

Peter touched the ground without too much trouble, and he started on his way, ignoring the dizziness and aching of his chest.

Walking. He could do that – super easy. Just...left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot...

He barely made it a block before he found himself stopping at a 7-11.

Taking a moment to thank God for the separate bathroom outside, he opened the metal door and shut it behind him, locking it with the latch.

He gripped the edged of the cool, used-to-be-white sink, trying to focus on breathing and not the way his broken ribs grinded together, the way the world tilted back and forth like a seesaw, or the way his head pounded.

Nope. He’d get home, he’d sleep it off, and he’d go to school tomorrow.

His life _sucked._

He looked up in the mirror, wincing at the harsh lighting of the bathroom...and then wincing at himself. His eyes were red rimmed, puffy, and glassy, and his hair looked like he had dried it with a wind tunnel (or, you know, maybe he had just stood on top of a plane – that would also be a plausible explanation). His pale skin was covered in grey soot – the same went for his fingers, though the pads of the fingertips themselves were bright red with recent burns.

So...he would need a shower.

Carefully, so that he didn’t disturb his right arm, he unzipped his hoodie and hung it over the empty paper towel dispenser. The red outerwear had made it hard to see, but now, standing with his blue long sleeve shirt on, he could see the puncture wounds and growing spots of wet scarlet.

He lifted his shirt to see the injuries more closely. Three or four areas were leaking blood at that moment – the uncertainty in number because he could only see the lower two.

A wave of dizziness nearly swept him off of his feet. Hastily, he let go of his shirt in order to hold the sink again.

Did he have a concussion? Probably.

Was the dizziness from blood loss? Also probably.

He had taken biology Freshman year; he knew that this was a bad situation. He had never gone up against as big of a threat as the Vulture. Not even the first car crash he thwarted had packed as big of a punch. The cherry on the sundae was just the fact that black had started to cloud his vision.

This was bad.

His phone rang, echoing around the small bathroom and causing him to flinch. He answered the phone and put it on speaker without looking at the Caller ID. He grabbed an extra roll of toilet paper, thinking that, if he had a prayer of making it home, he had to at least staunch the blood flow. “Hello?”

_“Hey, kid, are you still here?”_

This was worse.

“Hey, Happy!” Peter said slowly, wracking his brain for a quick way to end the call. “I- uh...where would ‘here’ be, exactly?”

Smooth, Parker.

_“What are you hiding? Remember that nothing gets past me before you lie again.”_

“Pssh, what?” Peter started to unravel a section of toilet paper. “W-what would I have to hide?”

_“You didn’t take anything, did you?”_

“No, of course not! I swear, I would nev- ah!” He couldn’t bite back the yelp as he pressed the wad of paper against one of the stab wounds.

There was a beat of silence, in which Peter found himself hoping that his phone had died. That way, he wouldn’t have to keep suffering through this phone call, and Happy couldn’t track him.

_“Where are you?”_

Peter leaned back against the wall, the pain from pressing on the stab wound making him feel unstable. “On my way home,” he said as casually as he could manage. “Why?”

_“I told you not to lie to me.”_

Peter sank to the ground, trying not to let out any sort of noise that could tip off Happy. “I’m not. I really am on my way home, I just...” He took a moment to take a shaky breath. “...had to make a quick stop.”

_“You tell me where you are right now or I’m calling Tony.”_

“A 7-11,” Peter blurted. “It’s a block or two away- please don’t tell Mr. Stark.” Telling _Iron Man_ , the hero that had just yelled at him a few days ago for getting involved and causing damage, that he had done that exact same thing again...

Well, he wouldn’t look forward to that conversation, that’s for sure.

_“Sorry, kid. I’m going to have to tell him either way.”_

“No,” Peter whined – or, at least, he _thought_ he managed to say it. He couldn’t really focus on anything. The black dots started to invade the rest of his vision.

_“You just sit tight, kid. I’m coming to get you.”_

“You don’t have to- hrk!” Peter coughed, choking on some sort of liquid.

 _“Kid?”_ Peter muted the phone as he coughed, feeling his rib cage tighten and shift like broken teeth.

He coughed, and something red came out of his mouth.

Suppressing his cough as much as he could, he unmuted the phone. “You’re coming?”

_“Yeah, why? What happened?”_

“Smoke,” Peter answered briefly. “I...I inhaled a lot of it.”

_“All right. Do you need to go to the hospital?”_

“No, it’s not that bad,” Peter lied. “I’ll be fine, just...get here soon, please?”

_“I’m only a minute away. I’ll see you then.”_

The call ended.

Peter lay down, feeling the relief of the cold tile floor instantly take effect and not caring that it was probably disgusting.

Happy just said he was coming, right?

He could afford to shut his eyes for a little while.

Just until Happy...

* * *

 

Happy came to a stop outside of what he hoped was the 7-11 Peter had told him about. Parking the car, he stepped out and looked through the windows.

He didn’t see the kid, that was for sure. There was a cashier and a man in several hoodies that was browsing the snack aisle, but no sign of the wavy-haired teenager.

To be honest, when the plane crashed, he had been terrified. There was _no way_ Tony wouldn’t fire him. The one operation he had to oversee had literally gone down in flames. And so, he did what he thought was logical: he assembled his own men to go see what the actual hell had happened.

Lo and behold, everything had been tied nicely with a bow by the time he arrived.

As soon as he saw the “FOUND” note, he remembered that kid – Fred? Ted? – and the warning he tried to give him earlier that night. He was, of course, in the middle of moving day, so he had just ignored the call. If the situation was _really_ pressing, or if it had anything to do with superhero business, the kid could call the police or something – really, anybody but Happy.

But upon seeing the aftermath, he immediately called Peter’s number.

He suspected that Peter had sustained some injuries – after a plane crash, who wouldn’t have – but he hated that his suspicions were confirmed with a yelp over the phone. He decided that, after everything the kid had done for him, he could afford to get him some help, or at least pick him up.

From a 7-11.

This kid had worse judgment than Tony.

Happy waited a few minutes, leaning against his car (okay, _Tony’s_ car) and checking his watch every so often.

The man inside bought his items and left.

No one else entered or left the store.

Fifteen minutes, and nothing had happened.

He brought his phone to his face. “FRIDAY, locate Peter’s phone, please.”

 _“Sure thing,”_ FRIDAY responded. _“Peter Parker’s phone is in the small building to your right.”_

Happy looked in that direction. “The bathroom?”

_“It seems so.”_

Happy shoved his phone back in his pocket and, looking around the parking lot, he crossed and approached the small building.

He knocked. “Kid, you in there?”

Silence.

He knocked again. “Peter, open the door.”

Silence.

The head of security backed up a few paces. Then, he rushed the door, leading with his shoulder. He slammed against the barrier, the cheap lock snapping in response and the door flying open.

What he saw was so much worse than what he had thought.

Lying on the floor, in a steadily growing pool of his own blood, was fifteen-year-old Peter Parker. The front of his shirt was soaked through with red. His face was covered with cloudy grey, his hair mussed and his clothes ripped and burned.

“Shit, kid,” Happy murmured. “FRIDAY, scan him.”

_“Subject: Peter Parker has evidence of four puncture wounds on his chest, a dislocated right shoulder, a broken right wrist, several burns, bruises, other minor lacerations, and several broken ribs, one of which has punctured a lung. He may also have a concussion.”_

Happy didn’t waste time on an expletive. He grabbed the kid’s phone and his red hoodie before bending down and scooping up the teenager. Moving as quickly as he could, he held the superhero firmly in his arms as he maneuvered him out of the bathroom, doing his best to keep him from hitting the door on his way out. “FRIDAY, call ahead to upstate. Tell them to have the MedBay ready.”

_“Shall I alert Tony Stark?”_

“Let me get in the car and then I’ll call him,” he said. The car opened its back doors as Happy approached the vehicle (thank you unnecessary and expensive technology), and he set Peter on the row of seats as gently as he could manage. The kid whimpered as soon as his back touched the leather, but Happy tried not to dwell on it. He had a kid to drive upstate – and from the looks of things, he wasn’t sure that Peter would make it the whole way.

The back doors shut as Happy made his way to the driver’s seat, barely allowing himself to shut the door behind him before putting it into gear and stepping on the gas pedal. He went as fast as he could through the streets of New York, weaving through traffic and sometimes going on the wrong side of the road if it helped him go faster.

As soon as he was out of the city, he got a phone call.

 _“Happy,”_ Tony Stark’s voice greeted. _“Mind telling me why my MedBay’s getting busy at o’dark thirty?”_

“There was a situation with moving day,” Happy started, increasing his speed further when he heard a weak cough from the backseat.

_“Situation? What kind of situation are we talking about?”_

“The Vulture guy the kid was after,” Happy explained. “He attacked the plane after it took off.”

_“Did he take anything?”_

“No. I haven’t had the chance to look over the security footage yet, but my best guess is that the kid fought-“

_“Wait, the kid, the kid? As in Peter doesn’t-have-his-suit Parker?”_

Happy spared a glance into the backseat. “He’s practically in pajamas, but he saved everything. Tied up the Vulture guy – Adrien Toomes.”

_“So the MedBay’s for him?”_

Happy grimaced. “It’s not good, Tony. I’m barely going to make it there in time as it is, and I’ve been speeding.”

_“FRIDAY, send the kid’s vitals to the MedBay. Happy, do you need a suit? I can fly out- It’d be faster-”_

“I’m only a few minutes out,” Happy assured him. “I’ll make it there before you. Just...maybe have a stretcher by the south entrance.”

“’M fine...” Peter groaned from the backseat.

_“Was that him?”_

“Yeah,” Happy grimaced. “Did you get FRIDAYS’s report yet?”

 _“Give me a second.”_ A brief pause, then, _“Shit.”_

“Let me let you go,” Happy said. “I’ve gotta focus on the road. I’ll be there in forty minutes, tops, all right?”

_“Just get here quickly.”_

The call ended.

Happy released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “’M s’rry,” Peter said quietly.

The security guard’s fingers clenched around the steering wheel. “You just hang on, kid. You’re gonna be fine.”

* * *

 

Those forty minutes were some of the longest Tony had ever experienced.

He sat on a cushioned bench by the south entrance, trying to block out the sound of his ever-present medical staff getting the MedBay ready for their latest injured superhero.

His emotions were all over the place. One moment, he was furious, convinced that, as soon as Peter got to the Compound, he’d start yelling at him for how stupid he had been. He had pulled some dumb stunts in the past two weeks alone, but this? This took the cake.

The next moment, he felt so anxious about the kid’s fate that he felt physically sick to his stomach.

When had he started to care so much? This one kid from Queens, who left constant voicemails about band practice and bank robberies, who either wore collared shirts with sweaters or nerdy science t-shirts, who had thrown himself into the dangerous world of being a superhero simply because it was the right thing to do...

Hell, he’d only talked to the kid, what, five, maybe six times? Everything else was second-hand through Happy. It could be said that he hardly knew the kid.

And yet...

Tony bounced his leg anxiously, trying not to focus on the clock right in front of him, or the bustling from the MedBay, or the silence from the rest of the Compound, or the extensive list of injuries FRIDAY had given him.

He wasn’t very good at ignoring them all at once.

Finally, headlights shone through the windows and he jumped to his feet. “They’re here!” he called back to the medics.

The car outside barely had time to park before Happy ran out, his front splashed with spots of red. He scrambled to the back of the car and disappeared behind the open car door for a few moments.

Tony was still hung up on the red.

Once the security guard pulled back, the doors to the car closed, revealing a teenager in brightly colored sweats.

Make that a _limp and unresponsive_ teenager in _bloody and burnt_ sweats.

Tony moved to meet them, but when the medics rushed past, wheeling the stretcher along with them, he stepped back to let them through.

They intercepted Happy before he even got in the building. The man merely placed the kid down on the bed, and the medics were off again, huddled so closely around the kid that Tony couldn’t see the kid’s face. He could only catch a glimpse of a hand or leg through the crowd of professionals.

He had to remind himself of that: the men and women he hired weren’t inexperienced. They were people that had saved countless lives before, and who were leading experts in their fields.

But he couldn’t hold back the tingling feeling of uncertainty as he watched the medics race back into the MedBay, leaving him alone in the lobby.

Alone.

Again.

The loneliness only lasted a few moments before Happy came in, clearly exhausted, taking a seat on the bench that Tony had just been sitting on.

The sounds of the medical team gradually grew quieter as they began treating the kid.

Soon, the atmosphere was filled with a silence.

A dense, heavy, suffocating silence.

There was a clock somewhere that wouldn’t stop ticking.

Tony rubbed his eyes, his thoughts too loud to make sense of at the moment. In times past, he had turned to his collection of alcohol to silence the voices in his head, but he wasn’t that version of himself anymore. He could deal with this. He could get through this, and so would Peter.

Tony dragged a hand down the length of his face. “What was he even doing there?”

“He never came into the tower,” Happy reported, sounding less than enthusiastic. “He jumped onto the plane after it had taken off. My guess is that he hitched a ride with maybe the Vulture.”

“I thought he had Homecoming tonight.” Tony had yet to look anywhere but the door through which Peter had disappeared.

“He was going with Liz Toomes – the Vulture’s daughter. He must have found out the guy’s plans and followed on a whim.”

 _On a whim_. This kid was going to give him grey hair.

He switched the discussion, thinking it’d be easier to talk about statistics rather than the kid fighting for his life a few doors down. “How much was lost in the crash? How much got damaged?” Tony forced himself to look away from the MedBay, his eyes instead falling on his blood-soaked bodyguard. “Actually, you know, you look dead.”

Happy smirked, but it lacked amusement. “Gee, I’m flattered.”

Tony jerked a thumb back to the hallway that led to the private quarters. “Get cleaned up, get some food, get some sleep. If you want, FRIDAY can notify you when the kid gets all fixed up.”

Happy looked at first like he wanted to argue, but he thought better of it. “Sure,” he said, nodding. “Do you want me to make up an excuse and call the kid’s aunt?”

“I’ll get it,” Tony assured him, waving a hand. “I’ll be up for a while anyways.”

Happy said nothing. Taking one last glance at the MedBay, the boxer walked down the hallway and out of sight.

The silence was back again.

That stupid clock kept ticking.

It only took a minute for Tony to have had enough of the loneliness, and so, he slid out his phone, settling for just an audio call. It rang a few times, then-

_“Hello?”_

“Hey, May, it’s Tony,” the inventor started.

_“Tony Stark? Why are you calling? Didn’t you fire Peter?”_

Tony suddenly found it very hard to swallow. “I believe there was a miscommunication. He was...well, he was supposed to meet me at the tower...about an hour ago.”

_“Oh! He’s at a school dance right now. What did you need him for?”_

“Just a...um...well, it’s sort of a...weekend retreat, of sorts – like the one I brought him on when he was first giving the internship a go.”

When did he get so bad at lying?

Probably when he met May Parker.

_“Is that this weekend?”_

“Yes,” Tony had begun pacing the lobby in an effort to keep himself levelheaded and calm. “Would you mind if I sent my guy to pick him up after the dance?”

_“No, not at all. I’m sure he’d be thrilled. Tell him to make sure Ned’s mother knows he won’t be with them though, okay?”_

“Sure thing,” Tony conceded, suddenly feeling oddly domestic. “I’ll have him give you a call when there’s a break. Deal?”

 _“Just make sure you get him back to me in one piece_.”

Tony bit his tongue for a second as what she said really hit. She had no idea that she might not- “You’ve got it, May. One piece.”

_“Alright. Bye-bye.”_

“Bye.”

He hung up the phone, and the loneliness crept back in again.

That damned clock was still ticking.

* * *

 

 

They finished with Peter about an hour and a half later, and, as Tony had guessed, Happy emerged from the habilitation wing just to get the rundown of injuries from beside Tony in the room where they had moved Peter for the night – possibly for longer.

The head doctor looked over her notes. “Well, FRIDAY had it mostly on point. We can confirm that Mr. Parker definitely has a concussion, and will need dimmed lights and low visual stimulation while he heals, which...doesn’t take very long, if I’m reading this correctly.

“His wrist had already begun to heal back, so we had to break it again to set it properly. The burns, cuts, and other bruises are already well on their way to healing, though, so that’s good news. There were some fairly serious burns on his fingertips, so we have those wrapped with silvadene, but those should be healed by morning. For his punctured lung, we have him-”

“What about pain meds?” Tony pressed. “The kid has fast metabolism. Do the meds work?”

The doctor swung her jaw from left to right. “I’m not sure. We’ll have to see when he wakes up and work from there. For now, let him sleep for as long as possible. Hopefully, his wrist and shoulder will be mostly healed by mid-day tomorrow. I’m not sure about the specifics of his healing, but I think it’s safe to say that he’ll be all set for back-to-school on Monday.”

Tony was aware of Happy bidding the doctor goodnight, but he himself didn’t say anything. How could he? He was too busy watching Peter, who had yet to move.

The kid lay on one of the MedBay beds, oxygen mask strapped to his face and IV needle in his arm. The heart rate monitor beside him beeped steadily, its normally quiet sound being magnified in the silence of the room.

Tony shoved his hands into his pockets, struggling to decide what he should do – if there was even anything that would make a difference.

The suit wasn’t quite knife-repellent yet.

He turned to Happy but didn’t quite make eye contact with him. “I’m going to go get some work done. Doc says the kid’ll be fine, so you don’t have to stay if you don’t-”

“I’ll stay,” Happy nodded. “He thought you’d be angry with him. It’d be good if someone can explain everything to him when he wakes up.”

Tony nodded back. “Yeah, that sounds good. FRIDAY will tell me when he wakes up. If you need me, I’ll be in my workshop.”

“Don’t stay up too late,” Happy teased in lieu of a farewell. Tony merely rolled his eyes and, taking one last sweeping glance over the state of the kid, he left the room.

* * *

 

Peter woke slowly and in a haze. All he saw was white, but he could feel-

He felt like he was on fire.

His chest ached and stung, his head swirled and pounded, and his arm was throbbing from his fingertips all the way up through his shoulder.

What had happened? The last thing he could remember...

He was in the 7-11 bathroom patching himself up, Happy had called, he started to wait...then...he had been in a car, and...nope. That was it.

Wait, had Happy even managed to reach him?! Stupid Parker, you can’t just fall asleep in public-

The terrifying thought of _What if I’ve been kidnapped?_ shut down all other thoughts and feelings.

He forced himself to open his eyes, sitting up as fast as he could and throwing off the blanket. He caught sight of the IV needle and hurriedly wrenched it out.

_They drugged him. They gave him something. There was something in his veins-_

He swung himself out of bed, ignoring the protests of his muscles and getting distracted by alarms going off.

He had to get out. _He had to get out_.

What if one of Mr. Toomes’s guys had grabbed him? Like the guy from the school bus parking lot? What if it was some group he didn’t know about?

_He had to get out hehadtogetoutgetoutgetoutgetout GET OUT-_

He ran to the door in a blind panic to find his path blocked by-

Happy?

His blazer and tie were both missing, but it was definitely him.

The man held his hands out in a placating gesture. “Peter, kid, you’ve gotta relax. You’re okay. You’re upstate.”

“Upstate?” Peter repeated, struggling to catch his breath and make sense of everything.

“You’re at the Avengers Compound,” Happy assured him. “I brought you here last night. After you fought the Vulture?”

Peter nodded, then stumbled backwards as a wave of dizziness washed over him. Happy grabbed his forearms to keep him from falling. “Steady, kid.” The floor was hardly straight anymore, and he felt his eyelids start to droop.

“Is Miszer Sdark here?” Peter managed, starting to slur his words.

“He’s down in his lab,” Happy told him. “Actually, he’ll probably be up in a minute- whoa!” Peter’s legs buckled and he would have hit the ground, if not for Happy’s quick reflexes. Instead, he was carefully lifted and maneuvered back onto the bed. “All right, kid. The doc said you needed sleep. We’ll talk about what happened when you wake up.”

“Hur’s too much,” Peter protested. “No sleebing-”

“I’ll get them to up the pain medication,” Happy assured him. “You just try to get as much rest as you can.”

“No exper’mentin’ on me, ‘kay?” Peter slurred. The blanket came back up over him.

“What? Kid, why would you-?”

But Peter was already asleep.

* * *

 

 

Waking up the second time was more pleasant. The pain had dulled to a sore achiness, and he could remember everything.

Including how he had collapsed into Happy’s arms however many hours ago.

He groaned. How did he manage to be so embarrassing without even trying? It was almost a talent at this point, something he could list on his resume as a certified skill.

“Morning, sunshine.”

Peter froze. He knew that voice. He’d known that voice better than he’d known his own _parents’_ voices.

Sort-of hoping that he was wrong, he slowly turned his head to find _The Tony Stark_ sitting next to his hospital bed, tablet in hand.

Mr. Stark looked over him. “You took quite a hit, squirt.”

Peter was _not_ ready to talk to his mentor. Er, his ex-mentor. For one, he knew he smelled like smoke. He knew his face was probably messed up. He knew his hair- _OH NO HIS HAIR._

“Mr. Stark?” he asked, wincing at the croakiness of his voice. “What are you-?”

“Hold off on the questions until Happy gets back,” Mr. Stark interrupted. “He’s been waiting to lecture you for hours.”

Peter gulped, but said nothing.

Mr. Stark didn’t say anything either.

They just sat there, Mr. Stark working on his tablet and Peter looking around the room, occasionally glancing back at his mentor.

Ex-mentor.

He knew he was in trouble (oh _boy_ did he know that). There was no way he was getting out of this one. Not only had he disobeyed Mr. Stark and had gone after the Vulture again, but he had also ended up needing medical help. And, if the rumpled collar of Mr. Stark’s shirt and the absence of Mr. Stark’s smirk were anything to go by, he had caused them a lot of trouble.

_What if they’re going to tell Aunt May?_

Peter thought about opening his mouth to ask that same question, but decided against it. Better to see what they had to say about his Homecoming activities than jump the gun and make things worse.

Like he had with the Staten Island Ferry.

_You mess everything up._

Just then, Happy walked through the door, a mug of steaming coffee in each hand. “The machine’s broken again,” he announced, handing one cup to the billionaire. “I think DUM-E was trying to-”

“Kid’s awake,” Mr. Stark said, nodding to the hospital bed.

Happy’s attention snapped to Peter, who flinched and looked away. “When did he wake up?”

“About five-ten minutes ago,” Mr. Stark replied, taking a drink from the mug.

“Is he- Whoa, kid, what’s wrong?” Happy took a double take and Peter realized that there were tear tracks running down his cheeks. He felt his cheeks flush in embarrassment.

“I’m sorry,” he stammered, covering his eyes with his bandaged hands. “I wasn’t going to go after him, I swear, but he found out that I’m Spider-Man and then he-”

“Wait, he- he _knows_?”

Mr. Stark sounded livid. Peter didn’t dare move his hand for fear of seeing his childhood hero angry with him _again_.

“I tried to stop him,” he hiccupped. “And then I found out he was going to attack your plane and I couldn’t just do nothing ‘cause then it’d be all my fault so I followed him and the warehouse collapsed and I know you’re mad at me but _please don’t tell Aunt May_ – she can’t know-”

“Kid, I’m not mad.”

A rough hand slowly guided Peter’s hand away from his eyes, and Peter blinked up at the face of his mentor, confused. “Y-you’re not?”

“Not exactly,” Mr. Stark assured him. Peter just felt his heart sink further. “Hold up. I’ll get to you in a minute.

“Happy,” Mr. Stark looked over at the security guard, “can you go get in contact with a good lawyer? I want to make sure Toomes never gets out of that prison.”

“On it,” Happy said briefly, setting the coffee down and stepping out of the room for the phone call.

Mr. Stark looked at Peter for a moment, obviously deep in thought. Peter chose to stay silent, waiting for his mentor to say something first.

He didn’t have to wait too long.

“Start from the top,” the man said eventually. “Don’t stop unless I tell you.”

So Peter started, recounting how he was picking up Liz when he was discovered by the Vulture and decided to ditch his date in favor of chasing her dad as he hijacked a plane over New York City. He tried to leave out the gruesome details, completely skipping over the warehouse (he didn’t think he could talk about it without getting a panic attack anyway) and most of the fight on the beach, when he kept going in and out of consciousness.

Mr. Stark didn’t need to know any of that.

The whole time that Peter was talking, he saw his mentor’s face deepen in a scowl that, by the end of his recounting, he was sure had to be permanent.

No way was he going to get out of this without serious punishment.

Iron Man stood up, starting to pace around the room.

“I wasn’t going to go after him, I promise,” Peter pleaded, struggling to push himself up to catch the eye of Mr. Stark and ignoring the pain pulsing through his chest. “But he said it was his last job and he was going to leave the city and I couldn’t just do nothing, so I was going in just to be back up, you know, in case something was going to happen and no one else was there, so I told Ned to keep calling Happy-”

“Kid, stop talking,” Mr. Stark cut him off. “They say most crimes are crimes of opportunity, and clearly that’s what happened with you.”

Peter, cursing himself, felt his eyes start to water. “Mr. Stark,” he begged, his voice bordering on a whisper, “I promise, I...I’ll give it up if you want me to, just _p-please_ , don’t tell May-”

“And then,” Mr. Stark continued, “you go lick your wounds in a 7-11 _public restroom?_ ”

Peter swallowed, the tears running down his cheeks again. “I know, I’m _sorry-_ ”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it, _kid_ ,” Mr. Stark snapped, the nickname turning bitter when laced with his tone. “You went into shock. You could have _died_. Do you understand that?”

“I’m sorry-”

“ _No_.” Mr. Stark marched over to Peter’s bedside, pointing a stern finger at the boy’s collar. “I need you to never do it again. Got it?”

The weight of his mentor’s last command settled on him like a heavy yoke: impossible to ignore, and oppressive in nature. He heard the unspoken order, loud and clear.

_Stop going out as Spider-Man._

“Yes sir,” Peter said in a quiet voice, suppressing the sudden urge to sob. “I won’t do it again.”

Mr. Stark stared him in the eyes for a few minutes, as if looking for some sign that he’d been lying.

Confusion passed over his face. “Parker, are you _crying_? Why- Did your pain meds wear off?”

Peter hid his face, scrubbing at his wet cheeks with his unbroken wrist. “No.”

“Is it at high enough dosage?”

“I’m fine,” Peter snapped (well, Peter _meant_ to snap at him, but it probably came out as more of a whimper). “I get it. I understand. _I’m sorry._ _I was wrong_. Please just... leave me alone.”

Peter rolled over, ignoring the screaming from his right arm as he laid his weight on it. He could deal with the pain as long as he didn’t have to look at his hero.

After a moment, Mr. Stark spoke up. “Your aunt thinks you’re at an internship thing this weekend, in case you were wondering, so take it easy. You’re not leaving until you’re healed.”

Peter was losing the battle with holding back his tears. “Thank you, Mr. Stark.” It felt as bitter and forced as it had when he’d said the same thing to Liz’s dad however many hours ago.

The door opened and closed, leaving Peter alone in the MedBay.

The teenager finally gave in and let his grief take over, shaking with silent sobs under the thin white blanket.

* * *

 

 

“You shouldn’t have been so hard on the kid,” Happy said, taking a sip of his coffee. Tony was standing with him in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and nursing his own mug.

“I just wanted to make sure he wouldn’t try and hide any more injuries,” Tony explained, brushing the guard off. “And he said he wouldn’t, so everything’s good. He can go back to doing his web-slinging and I can get back to his new suit.”

Happy looked at him quizzically. “You’re giving him the suit?”

“Yeah, well.” Tony cleared his throat. “He did good. He deserves it.”

“You tell him that?” Tony could tell that Happy was trying to be casual while asking by keeping his eyes on his coffee, which he swirled around in his mug, but the illusion was ruined because of the glances the security guard kept shooting at him when he thought his boss wouldn’t notice.

“He knows,” Tony said. “I told him I wasn’t mad at him.”

“And then you shouted at him,” Happy reminded.

Tony lifted the coffee mug to his face. “I didn’t _shout_ at him, I just...I got my point across.”

“So you yelled at him.”

“I just said that no, I didn’t.”

“Then why was he crying?”

“What? He wasn’t-”

“Why was he- Yes he was, I just went in to check on him and FRIDAY said that he hasn’t stopped for a long time.”

Tony frowned. “I told him I wasn’t... FRIDAY, find out why Peter’s upset. And don’t tell him that it’s me who wants to know.”

“ _Yes boss_ ,” the AI responded, causing Happy to jump and mutter something along the lines of ‘ _son of a bitch’._

Tony sipped his coffee to hide his small smile.

_“He appears to be in distress.”_

Tony rolled his eyes. “Obviously. Do some digging. Ask him why.”

Another brief pause.

_“Peter Parker has left the premises.”_

“ _What?”_ Tony put his mug on the counter and bolted, not stopping when he heard the crash of what he guessed was the mug he’d been holding. “He’s supposed to- Where is he?”

_“Training grounds to the west.”_

Tony skidded to turn fast enough, sprinting down a hallway that would get him out of the building faster.

Off of pain meds, and no longer with a steady stream of oxygen. Damn it. That kid.

He slammed into the glass doors with his bodyweight, throwing open the door and hitting the ground outside in a run. For a kid genius, Peter could be really dumb sometimes. He was still healing from a _punctured lung that had inhaled too much smoke_ for crying out loud.

“Which way?” Tony demanded, sliding his sunglasses on and clicking a button on the rim to activate FRIDAY.

_“Heat signature located in the woods, fifty meters to your left.”_

Tony was already moving before FRIDAY finished her report. The vision of his glasses switched to thermal as he took off, and before long, he caught sight of a small patch of red behind a tree.

He slowed his pace as he approached, self-consciously straightening the cuffs of the jacket he still hadn’t bothered to take off from the previous day whilst trying to get his breathing under control. When he neared the tree, he took off his glasses, finally finding Peter sitting with his back against the trunk, facing away from the Compound. “I thought I told you to stay in bed,” Tony started, but he stopped moving when he saw Peter rub his cheeks. “Are you-?”

“No, I’m not,” Peter cut him off, refusing to look up. “Quit asking. I want to be left alone, please.”

“Well, you can be left alone inside,” Tony stated. “Up you get. I don’t need you catching pneumonia, too.”

Peter was silent.

Tony sighed and crouched down, trying to see Peter’s face better. He took in the teen’s red eyes, moist cheeks, and shaky breathing and finally asked, “What’s wrong?”

Tony expected a few different responses. He expected Peter to not say anything. He expected Peter to just keep crying. He expected some form of an answer. What he _didn’t_ expect was for good, sweet Peter Parker to whip around and shoot him a glare.

“Do you even know why I became Spider-Man in the first place?” he challenged.

Tony had no idea what to say. The question had come out of left field. A better question would be 'why had the kid even left the building in the first place?' Tony was about to voice his thoughts, but Peter kept going.

“I want to help people,” Peter continued. “I like seeing them smile and I like talking to them. You can’t just-” He faltered, more tears rolling down his face as he struggled to get the words out. “You can’t just take that away and expect me to be okay with it.”

“Pete,” Tony said, “I have _no idea_ what you- oh.” The suit. He was talking about him taking away the suit.

“Yeah, _oh_ ,” Peter responded bitterly.

“You’re getting the suit back,” Tony said. “You know that, right?”

Peter looked away, pulling his knees in (and wincing). “Why? It’s not like I need it anyway.”

“What? What do you mean?”

There was that glare again (which honestly was more adorable than anything but with the mood Peter was in, Tony wasn’t about to say anything). “Why would I need it? You said you didn’t want me to go out as Spider-Man again, or you’d tell Aunt May.”

...

_What?_

“What?”

“You said-”

“I know what I said, kid,” Tony assured him, “and I never said anything like that.”

Peter’s eyes were starting to water again. “But you were mad at me for going in my old costume to stop the Vulture. _You’re mad at me_.”

Tony shook his head. “No, kiddo, I told you, I’m not mad. What kind of asshole would I be if I yelled at the kid who saved my stuff?”

Peter looked like he wanted to respond, but a hand flew up to cover his mouth in an attempt to stifle a sob. He looked away, embarrassed. Tony shrugged off his own awkwardness and moved closer, wrapping the teen in what he hoped was a comforting side-hug. “I’m not mad,” he repeated. “Worried, maybe, but mad? Never. I’m really proud of you, kiddo.”

For whatever reason, Peter just cried harder, turning and hugging his mentor tightly. Tony rubbed the kid’s back the way his mom used to, hoping that the teen found it as comforting as he had however many years ago.

“I th-thought you were mad-” Peter choked. “I thought- I thought you weren’t going to let me be S-Spider-Man an-anymore.”

“I think the whole ‘I’m going to fight a supervillain in my pajamas’ stunt you pulled proves that I don’t really get a say in whether you go out fighting or not,” Tony said, smirking. He looked down at the kid, prepping to make another tongue-in-cheek quip when he spotted a small fleck of red growing on Peter’s shoulder.

He hissed a curse. “Okay, kiddie, you’re going back to the MedBay, and you’re going to _stay there_ this time, or else I’ll actually be angry with you. Can you do that?”

Peter had started to reign in his emotions, but he was still too shaky to answer verbally. Instead, he nodded.

“Can you stand up, or do you need-? You know what, here.” Tony stood and lifted Peter up.

Peter laughed a watery laugh. “No, put me down. I can walk.”

“Nope.”

Peter’s expression turned deadly serious. “Mr. Stark, you can’t-”

“You’re injured,” Tony replied curtly. “You’re not walking.”

“You can’t just carry me like this-!”

“Why, you think I’m too old?”

Peter’s face went pale. “No, no, I didn’t say that-”

Tony rolled his eyes, easing the kid down so that he could walk. “Fine. But you’re going straight back to the MedBay, and if you so much as stumble, you’re getting a wheelchair or something. Got it?”

Peter was about a second away from arguing, but he cut himself off. “Fine.”

* * *

 

Happy watched the two as they meandered back towards the MedBay, ready to step in and help if the need arose.

He stayed back, of course, unwilling to break the moment of fond tranquility between mentor and protégé. Though, just by the looks on their faces, he would have said that the two were closer than that.

Maybe they’d realize that, someday.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys asked for a warehouse bonus chapter, and you are all the best people on Earth so how could I refuse? ;)

Peter was no stranger to nightmares. When he was a kid, he used to have almost daily night terrors. Aunt May had thought that they were caused by his parents’ deaths, and he had outgrown the terrors soon enough, as most children do.

The nightmares returned when Uncle Ben...

Needless to say, those nightmares had never quite left him.

But for whatever reason, after Tony had ushered him back into the MedBay at four in the morning, Peter found himself experiencing a different sight for his nightmares.

Green eyes, dust, water trickling down his face-

_Weight pinning his shoulders, the grumbling and growling of shifting concrete, the crack of flames somewhere in the distance-_

He woke with a gasp, cold sweat clinging to his back like a second skin. The images from his nightmare clung to his mind, caught in a loop that seemed to worsen as he realized that all of that had actually happened.

He gripped his broken wrist with his good hand, trying to ground himself. The rough texture of the cast and the beeping of the heart monitor next to him was enough to ground him in the present moment. Good – he couldn’t be spiraling. Not here. Not now. And certainly not over this.

_Breathe_. He could breathe. Inhale, exhale. Easy peasy. Don’t think about anything, just focus on breathing.

_In._

_Out._

His hand still shook a little from the adrenaline. It would stop with time. He just needed to calm down. It would stop.

There was a light rap on the door.

Peter hid his shaking hand among the covers and looked towards the door, prepared for anyone to be standing in the doorway.

Mr. Stark raised an eyebrow at him. “Feeling jumpy this morning?”

Peter swallowed. “Yeah, I...yeah.”

“I’m not about to lecture you again, kid,” Mr. Stark remarked, moving to one of the chairs by the bed. “I’ve already said my piece. You’re getting the suit back. The plane crash is getting cleaned up, the press is being handled, and your attractive aunt is none the wiser. Quit looking like you’re expecting to be attacked.”

Peter nodded. “Sorry, I think my senses are just...turned up a little too much. It makes me jumpy.” A half-truth, since he couldn’t lie to save his neck. Sensory overloads _did_ tend to make him more sensitive to...well, everything, but he wasn’t having an episode right at that moment. Mr. Stark didn’t have to know that, though.

His mentor frowned, leaning forward. “This happen a lot?”

“About once every four or five weeks,” Peter said, shrugging. “I usually call in sick and wait for it to pass.” That was one hundred percent true – if by ‘waiting for it to pass’ included trying to stay as still as possible and not touch anything.

“You just...wait?” Mr. Stark clarified.

“Yeah. It gets a little boring.”

Mr. Stark leaned back in his chair, linking his fingers together and settling them on his stomach. “I’ll tell you what. I have to go out for a few hours, and my medical staff wants to check up on you, but if you’re good and Dr. Cho lets you leave your room, we’ll build some sensory modulators this afternoon – to help with the whole overload shebang. Sound good?”

Peter blinked. “In your- in your workshop?”

“Well, Pepper doesn’t like it when I bring projects into the kitchen, so yeah. My workshop.”

The thought of working alongside _Tony Stark_ in _Tony Stark’s personal lab_ pushed memories of dry dust and wet rubble from his mind. Peter grinned. “That sounds awesome.”

* * *

 

 

Tony Stark had been to many prisons before.

There was the prison in Monaco, where he’d talked to a man that could have been his equal, with the right resources.

There was the RAFT, where he’d realized that maybe he’d chosen the wrong side to fight on.

But this prison? There was nothing particularly special about it – except the fact that it temporarily housed Adrien Toomes.

Adrien Toomes, who had asked for him personally.

Even though Tony usually preferred to drive himself, he let Happy take the wheel this time. There were too many thoughts running through his head to possibly allow him to safely concentrate on driving through New York.

He’d left the kid to get checked over by the MedBay staff for the afternoon. Hopefully, his wrist would be healed back and his shoulder wouldn’t be as tender. Maybe he’d be able to be off of the pain medication too. Who knew – maybe the kid would be out of the MedBay by dinner.

May wasn’t expecting him to be back for another day yet, so they’d have to find something to fill the time with. Come to think of it, he could maybe get Peter’s thoughts on his new suit. And as for where he’d stay, well, he was going to have a room at the Compound anyway. What better time to break it in?

Whatever. That wasn’t important. Happy could handle arrangements while he was otherwise occupied.

Before Tony was ready, they had reached the prison, Happy pulled up in front and looked back at him via the rearview mirror. “You going in alone, or you want me with you?”

“I’ll be good,” Tony said, brushing off his concern. “You figure out where Toomes launched to get onto my plane. I’ll be back in thirty minutes. Maybe.”

Ignoring the voice in his head that urged him to just wait, or turn around and go home, Tony deftly opened the door and stepped out, taking a moment to collect his wits as he shut the car door.

No thinking about Avenger business. No thinking about the kid. No thinking about nanotech and other upgrades.

Plane. Toomes. The Vulture. _That’s_ what he had to think about.

Wits collected, he started moving again, approaching the doors that led into the holding facility.

Inside was a small lobby, with two guards behind desks, both protected by panels of glass. There were three chairs to the right, a coffee table with Vanity Fair magazines sitting in front of them. There were double doors located beside the two guards, locked and still.

Tony approached one of the guards – a woman with wispy blonde hair and what might have been the previous day’s eye shadow under her eyes. “Can you point me in the direction of Adrien Toomes, please?” It was a question, but it didn’t come out like one.

The woman glanced up at him. “Tony Stark. Didn’t think you’d actually show up. Thought you’d have better things to do.”

“Well, he managed to hijack my plane,” Tony countered. “That kinda put him on my radar. Where is he?”

“Mike, can you take him?” the woman asked, looking lazily over at the man next to her. “I’m kinda in the middle of something.”

The man nodded and slid out of his chair, moving around the table with quiet purpose. “This way,” he said.

With that, the guard walked towards the double doors.

Tony followed, subtly fiddling with his watch to gain control of the audio and visual data of the security cameras.

Something told him he’d need full control of the situation.

* * *

 

 

After dropping off his boss, Happy pulled into the parking lot and turned off the car.

Immediately after that, he set about making things right. Eager to earn back his dependable reputation, he reviewed the latest report regarding the plane wreck that had happened the night before.

Apparently, the plane had changed course a mere six minutes after it had achieved liftoff. It veered right after passing over the industrial district. If he had to guess, the Vulture probably launched from somewhere in that area.

Maybe. Or, he could have been flying alongside the plane for a while.

Either way, Toomes had boarded the plane by the time it went off track, so he probably had been waiting somewhere between Avengers Tower and the industrial district.

“FRIDAY,” he instructed, holding his phone close to his mouth, “check the industrial warehouses along the plane route. Look for anything suspicious.”

“ _Searching.”_

With that running in the background, Happy turned his attention back to the inventory list, scanning the complete list of items. One of the miniaturized arc reactors had been missing a few hours ago, but it had since been found in the sand-

_“I have found an irregularity in the satellite feed of New York located in the industrial district from this morning,”_ FRIDAY announced, giving Happy his second heart attack in twenty-four hours.

“Already?”

“ _There is a warehouse that was standing yesterday, but has since collapsed.”_

Putting aside the inventory list, Happy put the keys in the ignition and started the car. “That sounds like a good place to start,” he mused. “Pull up directions.”

“ _Routing course now_.”

* * *

 

 

Tony stood outside of a windowless, metal door, once again gathering his thoughts.

The officer that had guided him here – Mike, was it? – peered into his face almost sheepishly. “Mr. Stark?” he checked. “Are you ready? I can give you a few minutes to yourself-”

“Nah, let’s get this done,” Tony interrupted, stepping back a little. “Come on, open sesame.”

The guard nodded and unlocked the door. “Remember that he can get time off his sentence if he cooperates and gives up names. And I’ll be watching from behind the glass,” he said, and he opened the door. Tony walked in without responding.

He had expected Toomes to be... Well, he didn’t exactly know what he had expected. Maybe someone more intimidating.

Adrien Toomes was the least intimidating person he had ever seen in a prison, that was for sure. The man was in his late-forties to mid-fifties, and had started to show signs of aging. His face had begun to wrinkle, and from what Tony could tell, Toomes’s hair had gone grey. The wrinkles on his face were heaviest around the eyes, with some around the mouth, indicating that the man laughed often, or had a near-constant smile.

Aside from the prison jumpsuit and the handcuffs keeping his hands above the table, he just didn’t fit the imposing character of “The Vulture” as Peter had painted him.

The door shut behind Tony, and Toomes looked up.

“Stark,” he greeted, his voice a low rumble. “I’m glad you came.”

Tony crossed to the table, pulling out a chair. “Quite the spot you picked for a first date,” he remarked casually. “Come here often?”

“I try not to make a habit of it.”

Tony searched through Toomes’s face, trying to tell what exactly the man’s angle was. “All right, you’ve got me,” he said.

Toomes looked at him skeptically, his head tilted to the side and his brow furrowed, but still a small smile remained on his face. “Oh?”

“We’ve never met, right?” Tony started.

“That’s right.”

“So we don’t have history.”

Toomes barked a small laugh. “At this point, who doesn’t have some connection to you, Tony Stark?”

Tony leaned back in his chair. “You’re gonna have to give me more than that – I’ve never been a ‘riddles’ kind of guy.”

“You’ve been everywhere,” Toomes said. “You, your suits, the damages you cause- It’s a miracle there are any people still alive. Everyone is constantly put at risk by your reckless ‘heroing’. Oh, besides the Avengers in their lofty tower, of course.”

“Compound, now, I sold the Tower,” Tony corrected, “but you already knew that, didn’t you?”

Toomes met Tony’s gaze and grinned.

“Y’know,” Tony continued, “I just have one question, right now. For now, at least.” He leaned forward. “If you don’t like the Avengers, then why did you want to talk to me?”

The handcuff chain rattled against the table as Toomes pointed at Tony. “That’s not it. I can respect your work – and I do. My daughter, Liz, she’s always loved the Avengers. It used to be that, if she managed to go a whole day without mentioning superheroes, something was up.

“No, I get why you guys do what you do. Same reason why I do what I do – to protect the people I love. That’s something you can relate to, right, Stark? Same reason, different method. Y’know, I used to work on cleanup. That’s what I was doing however many years ago, after New York happened.”

He spread his hands. “But times change, and people gotta change too.”

“Is that what happened to you?” Tony asked, more for the sake of urging on the conversation than actual curiosity.

“Plain and simple,” Toomes replied, white teeth glinting.

“So you took the wreckage and turned it into weaponry,” Tony said. “Am I getting that right?”

“Yep.”

Tony dragged a hand down his face. “You know, I’ve known a lot of really smart guys. Not as smart as I am of course, that’s a pretty high bar to beat, but these guys, they were real geniuses. Aldrich Killian and Maya Hanson – brilliant, the both of them. My dad, too, I guess. And while I’m at it, Ivan Vanko. They were all so capable, so...what’s the word- innovative, they were innovative beyond belief but they all went wrong, the same way.

“Killian called it ‘desperation’.” Tony tried to block out memories of fire and explosions as he talked. He’d gotten very good at it over the years – hopefully, he could hold up a front now. “I don’t know if it was actually desperation or not, but whatever it was, it made them all decide to use their talents and ideas for the first cause that came their way. Vanko did it for revenge, Hanson for progress, Killian for success, and my dad...well, to tell you the truth, I’m still trying to figure that one out.”

Tony looked Toomes in the eye, willing him to understand. “You’re just like them. I’ve got warehouses stuffed with shipping containers of unused tech that we don’t know how to dispose of or make use of yet, and here you are with this brilliant idea to repurpose it, and what do you do? You sell it to ATM robbers and muggers.”

“Business is business,” Toomes said, shrugging. “You used to do the same thing.”

“There’s a difference between legal and illegal weapons manufacturing,” Tony said forcefully.

Toomes said nothing – he just folded his hands and grinned again.

Honestly, Tony was starting to want to punch that smirk right off his face.

“Look,” Tony went on, “I don’t know what you want. You can’t get out of this without time in prison, and considering how many people you’ve killed and endangered, directly and indirectly, I’d be surprised if they let you out before you turn a hundred. Hopefully they have benefits for senior citizens in prison. Like crime-bingo-night or something.” Tony stood up, pushing his chair back under the table and adjusting his jacket.

“And there’s no way for me to get less time?” Toomes asked. It would have seemed nonchalant if he hadn’t just been giving a carefree smile for the past three minutes. Now, his face was blank.

“Not unless you start giving out names,” Tony said, moving towards the door.

“Here’s one: Peter Parker.”

* * *

 

 

Navigating through traffic in New York at midday on a Saturday was pretty close to what Happy thought purgatory would be like.

After inching through ten blocks at a whopping three miles an hour for five agonizing minutes, the idea of asking FRIDAY to reroute him occurred to him, and he immediately asked the AI to do so.

“ _Gladly_ ,” she had said, as if she had just been waiting for him to voice the words this whole time.

Knowing the intelligence of Tony’s AIs, she probably had.

After she had directed him down a series of alleyways, he finally made it to the destination that he had asked for at the start of this mess: the warehouse that had inexplicably collapsed at some time in the last twenty-four hours.

He turned onto the road that led to the building, surprised to find an Audi just sitting off to one side, as if it had been hastily parked.

Frowning to himself, he pulled the car he was driving over to the side of the road, securing it and stepping out, his phone at the ready for anything he would need to do.

One glance at the right side of the car made him wonder if it had really been parked at all. The entire flank had been scratched and warped so badly that it was almost an entirely different color from the rest of the car. A look at the road revealed a path of damage that led straight up to the vehicle.

“FRIDAY, I’m gonna need you to run the plates of this car,” Happy said. “I wanna know who owns this car, why they left it here, and where they are now.”

“ _Right away,_ ” FRIDAY parroted. “ _Running plates through database. Match found.”_

“Whose car is it?”

“ _The vehicle belongs to Frederick Thompson,”_ FRIDAY reported. “ _Midtown Tech security feed shows his son, Eugene Thompson, driving the vehicle to the school last night, twenty-three minutes before the plane left Avengers Tower. The vehicle was then commandeered by a person in red and blue clothing.”_

Happy patted the car, now done with examining it. “So, Peter got the car.”

“ _I assume so. Would you like me to ask him?”_

“Not yet,” Happy said, walking off in the direction of the warehouse. “I want the full story first.”

“ _Making a note of what we know so far.”_

“Read it to me.”

“ _Peter Parker accompanies date, Elizabeth Toomes, to Midtown Tech. He runs out a few minutes later and has a confrontation in the parking lot. He then takes a car and drives it to the industrial sector. He boards the plane with Toomes and crashes the plane on Coney Island, where he apprehends Toomes and saves Boss’s possessions. He walks to a 7-11-”_

“I’ve got that part,” Happy interrupted. “We just need to figure out what happened in those missing steps. There’s a bit of a jump between getting here and landing the plane.”

Then, the warehouse came into view, and Happy found himself a little stunned at what he saw. He knew it had collapsed, sure, but hearing a report and actually seeing it were two different things.

The warehouse seemed to have had two connected buildings – one at the front of the lot, and one behind it. Well, it seemed to be that way from the picture taken of it before it had collapsed. Now, the only building left fully standing was the one closest to the street.

“FRIDAY,” Happy said, “send a car for Tony – we’re going to be here for a little while.” He scrutinized the warehouse and added another command. “And scan the building. Can I go in?”

“ _Preliminary scans show little damage to the frontal section of the building. I advise caution.”_

Happy pocketed his phone and strode over to the building, his shoes clicking against the pavement. When he reached a side door, he looked around briefly and, deciding that he probably wasn’t being watched, he ducked inside.

The lights were already on.

He pulled out the pistol he always carried with him, scanning the warehouse to see if he was really alone or not.

The door had opened onto an elevated platform, giving Happy a full view of the warehouse. There were worktables and shelves, loose papers and materials, but – to his relief – there was no one in sight.

He lowered his pistol. “FRIDAY, scan for any people.”

“ _Scanning. I have detected no heat signatures in the warehouse.”_

“You sure?”

“ _Positive.”_

Happy tucked his pistol back into its holster uneasily. “Okay, but if I get shot, you have to tell Tony it was your fault.”

“ _You will not be assaulted. I would give you a heads-up.”_

Happy moved to the very edge of the platform, scanning the room himself until his eyes fell on a darkened hallway that had rubble pouring out of it. “Access the security tapes, too. I want to know what happened here.”

* * *

 

 

As soon as the words ‘Peter Parker’ had left Toomes’s mouth, Tony gave FRIDAY the signal to scramble the audio and visual recordings of the room.

He’d have to play this carefully.

Ignoring the triumphant look on Toomes’s face, Tony knocked on the reflective glass in the room. “Mike, you still there?”

A voice came in over the speaker system in the room. “ _Yes sir_.”

“You’re gonna have to step out for a minute,” Tony said. “Avenger business – classified, top security stuff. You know how it is.”

“ _Oh, uh,_ _yes sir. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”_

The speakers turned off, and Tony was left alone with Toomes.

He had hoped that Peter wouldn’t be brought up, and had hoped that Peter was wrong when he said that Toomes knew who he was. Apparently, luck wasn’t on his side today.

He struggled with broaching the subject, trying to actually think ahead this one time, but Toomes beat him to the punch.

“Tell me something, Stark,” Toomes said. “How are you connected to Parker?”

Tony looked at Toomes, trying to gauge what kind of game the man was playing at. “He’s an intern. Part of the September Foundation.” He paused, then, “What do you know about him?”

“He’s got a hell of a grip,” Toomes laughed, growing more comfortable with the situation. “Lives in Queens, with an aunt, he’s a sophomore at Midtown, and he up and disappears from the group whenever Spider-Man is in the area.”

“Enough talking in circles, just say it,” Tony snapped. “I don’t have all day.”

Toomes’s triumph grew, and Tony soured at the man’s obvious feelings of ease. “Peter Parker is Spider-Man.”

Tony took a minute to scrutinize Toomes, then pulled out the chair across from him and sat down again. “What are you going to do with that information?” Tony asked.

“Well, I don’t know,” Toomes said, giving a half-hearted shrug. “Who knows where I’ll be in a month? Opportunities are based on location and who you’re with, and at the moment, those two things are entirely up to you.”

“Are you blackmailing me?” Tony challenged.

“No,” Toomes assured, waving a hand as if to dismiss the notion, but Tony wasn’t convinced. “No, I wouldn’t do anything. Pedro’s a good kid. Saved my daughter in DC. He just doesn’t know when to step out of the picture, you know? Sometimes that means somebody has to take him out, and I’m sure there are a lot of guys that share my opinion and would jump at any sort of insider information.”

Tony felt the muscles in his jaw tense up.

Toomes went on, heedless of or callous towards Tony’s bottled distress. “I’m guessing the internship is just a front for his...extracurriculars? I mean, Spider-Man is out almost everyday – well, except for the past week or two. And then, suddenly, he shows up to fight me in sweats, goggles, and knee-high socks. He’s got spunk, I’ll give him that.

“But here’s what I still don’t get.” Toomes leaned forward, chain rattling against the table. “Pete’s a nobody, like me. Guys like us don’t get noticed by guys like you. What makes him-”

“You’re wrong several times over, buddy,” Tony interrupted. “First off, there’s no ‘guys like me’. I’m pretty special. Second...”

Tony leaned forward as well. He wanted to make sure Toomes heard every word. “Peter is not a nobody, and he is _nothing_ like you.”

Toomes chuckled, relaxing in his chair again. “Maybe not physically. He’s crazy strong, isn’t he? Pulled up that elevator in DC all on his own, I remember. You know, I thought bringing the warehouse down on top of him would have squashed him, but some spiders are like that. You slam your boot down over and over again, and yet-”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” Tony interrupted again, quickly losing patience with this conversation. “What did you just say? You said you dropped a what now?”

Toomes scoffed and waved a hand. “He was fine-”

“No no,” Tony stopped, “that’s not what I asked you. Repeat what you just said.”

“He went on to land a plane by force,” Toomes countered. “I think he’s fine.”

Tony felt himself losing patience with this conversation. If he couldn’t find out what had happened from Toomes, he would just have to piece it together himself. “Where is it?” Tony demanded. It was not a question.

Toomes looked up at him, brows raised. “The warehouse?”

“No, the crown jewels- _yes_ the warehouse!”

“Here’s your deal,” Toomes started. “I’ll tell the cops everything about my business, and I’ll give you the address of my warehouse, _and_ I’ll keep Pedro’s itsy bitsy secret in return for only five years in prison.”

Tony was no idiot. He’d made deals with people before – conventions had taught him that the first offer was never the one you took. “Thirty years.”

“Ten.”

“Twenty-five.”

“Thirteen.”

“Twenty, and I’ll pay for your daughter’s college tuition.”

Toomes halted, a little surprised at the second part of the offer. Maybe it was the fact that Tony had brought up his family. Obviously, the man held his daughter close to his heart, since he hadn’t been able to get through a single conversation without mentioning her – twice.

Slowly, Toomes nodded. “132 Lombardy Street, in Brooklyn.”

Tony stood abruptly and made his way to the door. “You get that, FRIDAY?”

“ _Yes, Boss.”_

“Don’t screw me over, Stark,” Toomes called after him.

Tony didn’t bother replying. As soon as he laid his hand on the doorknob, he pulled it open and stepped out into the hallway, power-walking back to where the lobby was.

His sudden movement caused the awaiting security guard to jump, but the officer quickly regained his composure and hurried to catch up to Tony. “Mr. Stark, sir-”

“If he’s guilty, he gets twenty years,” Tony said briefly. “He gave up information.”

“I’m sorry, but we need to know what he said-”

“No can do.” Tony pulled out his sunglasses and put them on with a smoothness that only came from years of doing the same motion repeatedly. “Classified Avenger business. Top secret stuff.”

“But-”

Tony pushed open the double doors with gusto, entering back into the lobby and catching sight of his...white Audi A4...?

“ _Happy is currently occupied,”_ FRIDAY supplied. “ _He asked me to send this instead.”_

“Huh,” Tony hummed. He glanced back over his shoulder. “It’s been fun, Mike. I’ll have somebody official send over the papers and whatever you need.”

And with that, Tony left the holding facility. His car opened the driver’s side door for him as he approached, and he ducked into the car. “Thank you, dear.”

“ _Happy is currently investigating 132 Lombardy Street, Brooklyn,_ ” FRIDAY informed.

Tony shut the car door. “He beat us to it.”

“ _Do you want me to plot you a course?”_

“Might as well,” Tony said, putting the car into drive. “I’d hate for him to be bored without me.”

* * *

 

 

When Tony arrived at the warehouse, all hope that Toomes had been lying about dropping a building on Peter vanished.

Well, now Peter’s broken ribs and concussion had a clearer cause.

Tony swiftly parked the car and stepped out, moving past an utterly...er... _scratched_ Audi and heading towards the warehouse. “Happy’s in there, right, FRI?”

“ _Yes sir. Would you like me to notify him that we’re here?”_

“Nah,” Tony said. “I’ll surprise him.” He opened the side door and entered.

The interior of the warehouse was honestly pretty close to what he had expected, what with the work station and storage areas – though he hadn’t foreseen the strange raised platform in the corner. From the motors and the tracks in the ceiling, he was pretty confident that it was where Toomes stored his Vulture suit. It seemed like the retractable roof was the only viable entrance for his wings, anyway.

Tony spotted Happy going through one of the boxes, files splayed out across an empty table in front of him. “Fancy meeting you here,” he remarked, going down the stairs to join the boxer.

Happy glanced up and frowned. “I thought you were talking to the Vulture guy.”

“I was,” Tony replied. “Wrapped it up. We’re paying for his daughter’s college tuition, by the way.”

If Tony’s initial arrival hadn’t surprised Happy, this piece of information certainly did. “His- What? Why?”

“Because if I do, then he won’t say a word about the kid while he’s in prison,” Tony explained, joining Happy at the table. “The guys inside a jail are sometimes more dangerous than the ones outside. At least now he won’t be talking about things he shouldn’t.” He pointed to the files on the desk. “What’s this? Find anything good?”

“Inventory records, buyers, money transactions, a couple of plans for weapons,” Happy listed. “They’ve kept pretty much everything. There’s no names on who actually worked here, but there’s enough to pin Toomes down for life.”

“Might not work out that way,” Tony remarked, and before Happy could ask about what he’d just said, he continued. “Has FRIDAY finished analyzing security footage yet?”

“Uh, yeah. About five minutes ago,” Happy reported. “I haven’t gone through it yet.”

Tony clapped his hands together. “Let’s do that. FRIDAY, recreate the security tapes. Starting from around six o’clock PM.”

“ _Generating.”_

Tony took three hologram generators from his pocket and tossed them around the room, one sticking to the wall, and two on the floor on opposite sides of the room.

“ _Six PM.”_

...

Tony looked around. “Anything happening?”

“ _No, Boss.”_

“Start the simulation when there’s movement.” He leaned back against the table.

“ _Six-eighteen PM.”_

The sound of the side door opening echoed around the room. Happy’s hand flew to his holster, but there was no threat. Instead, the hologram system activated, and a flickering blue form appeared from the door.

“That Toomes?” Happy asked, relaxing.

Tony nodded. “Looks like.”

The hologram of Toomes scurried down the stairs, hurrying to a table littered with various parts and schematics. He grabbed an aviator jacket and put it on, then paused.

Tony followed Toomes’s gaze and saw the Vulture wings, currently resting on the platform. The hologram paused, then grabbed some kind of device off of the desk and clicked a button. Pocketing the device, Toomes rushed out of the first room and fizzled out into a hallway, which was currently blocked with not-hologram rubble.

“Do we know what was in that other room?” Tony checked.

Happy shrugged. “Parking garage, maybe? Testing room?”

“ _Next movement at six-twenty-four PM.”_

The side door sound played again, but quieter, and Tony found his attention back on the holograms.

The lean form of a certain teenager in sweats reached the railing of the upper level, looked around, and shot a web to the ceiling so that he could swing down with ease. He didn’t even bother glancing at the wings or anything – he just ran into the hallway where Toomes had disappeared.

A thought occurred to Tony and he pinched the bridge of his nose in anticipation, because deep down, he already knew the answer to the question he was about to ask. “The scratched car outside. Did he-?”

“Commandeer it from a student and drive across town with no license?” Happy finished. “Yes, he did.”

“‘He’ meaning Peter?”

“Yep.”

Tony huffed a laugh. “Of course he did. FRIDAY, remind me not to let him use one of my cars ever.” He paused. “Actually, you know what, he could use the extra safety features. Make sure he doesn’t drive with anything else.”

“ _You got it, Boss.”_

“Speaking of the kid,” Tony went on, turning to Happy, “I want to finish up here so we can make sure he doesn’t run off again, if he hasn’t already.”

_“Peter Parker is currently being examined a second time by Dr. Cho,”_ FRIDAY said. _“You have another thirty minutes before he has an opportunity to jailbreak.”_

“Let’s finish up the rest of the security footage and hit the road,” Tony said.

“Just off your phone, right?” Happy questioned. “The other building doesn’t even exist anymore, so you can’t play the footage as a hologram, anyway.”

Tony leveled his gaze at Happy, meeting the challenge head-on. “FRIDAY, be a dear and condense the recreation to fit in the open half of the room, please.”

“ _Condensing._ ”

Tony raised a smug eyebrow at Happy, who rolled his eyes and turned back to his work with a “yeah, yeah.”

Leaving Happy to his files, Tony went back up to the upper level, taking the stairs two at a time. He made it up just as FRIDAY started to play the next tape.

Tony watched as Peter walked in and started to talk with Toomes, the latter of the two trying to feed Peter the same lie where ‘upper class Tony Stark doesn’t care for people in need’. Bullshit.

Peter wasn’t falling for it. Of course, Toomes didn’t need Peter to fall for his reasoning – no. Tony caught on pretty easily that the man was stalling. He’d battled enough villains to recognize the veiled circumlocution.

Peter, however, had not.

The wings burst in and started flying around, crashing into pillars and stirring up so much dust that Tony almost couldn’t tell what was happening in the recording.

He could see well enough to watch as the entire roof of the warehouse came crashing down on his kid.

When Toomes had said that he had caused the ceiling to collapse, Tony had hoped that he had meant a few sheets of metal, maybe, or just a bit of drywall or something.

The mountain of concrete stole the breath from his lungs.

Suddenly, he was back in his old home in Malibu, when missile upon missile had cracked into his home, causing it to fall into the sea – with him underneath it.

He could see the concrete as it descended upon him sluggishly.

He could feel the water seeping into his suit, and the metal cables trapping him in place.

He could hear the creaking of metal as his suit began to dent from pressure-

The Vulture took off, leaving Peter alone in the rubble, pulling at his mask and struggling to lift the crushing weight off so that he could escape.

Then, Peter started crying out for help-

“Stop the recording,” Tony choked. The holograms disappeared in a blink.

Tony, feeling as though his knees wouldn’t hold him upright much longer, eased himself down so that he was sitting. He put his face in his hands, focusing on breathing deeply.

_He’s all right now. He’s okay. He’s safe._

“Boss?”

_He’s at the Compound. The Compound is safe._

“Tony?”

_You’re safe. Killian is dead. You’re not there anymore. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe._

_Breathe._

A hand solidly gripped his shoulder and Tony looked up, finding the face of a concerned Happy.

“You gonna be all right?” Happy checked.

_Breathe._

Tony took a deep breath. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Can’t say the same for the kid.”

Happy glanced toward the blocked-off hallway. “Yeah. And still he saved the plane afterwards-”

_Breathe._

Okay.

“I’m not talking about physically,” Tony interrupted, tone turning sour. “We just had this conversation this morning about not hiding anything, and he completely leaves out that this...” He gestured to the warehouse. “...ever happened.” Furious beyond belief, he pushed himself up and strode towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Happy called.

Tony answered over his shoulder, “To ground a teenager.”

* * *

 

 

By the time Tony had arrived to the MedBay, Peter had finished all of the tests and bandage changes. The wrist cast was gone – as were the bandages around his fingers and palms. The IV stayed, however. Cho had caught him before he went in and briefed him on the various injuries. Most were gone already, but the wrist, shoulder, and puncture wounds would be tender for at least another day. His concussion and ribs weren’t quite healed yet, either.

Tony thanked her for the update, but in truth, he had only registered half of it. His mind was much more concerned with how much trouble the kid was in.

He went into the room, at first caught a little off guard by how much better the kid was looking. The oxygen mask was off, most of the bandages were gone, and someone had helped him clean the soot, sand, and blood from his hair and face. If it weren’t for the IV and the clothes with the Stark Industries MedBay logo on them, he’d look just as he always did.

_Safe. Healthy._

Peter smiled as soon as Tony entered the room. “Hey, Mr. Stark!”

_Right. Peter. Trouble._ Tony’s thoughts quickly righted themselves.

Apparently, his thoughts showed themselves on Tony’s face, because Peter’s smile disappeared. “Uh... How was your day, Mr. Stark?” Peter tried uncertainly.

Tony shrugged, moving towards a chair by the bed. “A little boring. Did a lot of driving, mostly. Say, Pete, do you remember what we talked about this morning?”

Peter tucked his free arm around his torso. “Telling you about injuries?”

“I think we can expand that to include ‘telling me about what caused the injuries’ too, right? Don’t you think?” Tony said.

“Uh, r-right, I mean, sure, that sounds-”

“That sounds reasonable, right?” Tony interrupted, and Peter nodded. “So,” Tony continued, “having said that, is there something you would like to tell me?”

The color drained from Peter’s face.

“Something about a certain warehouse collapsing?” Tony pushed.

Peter said nothing.

Tony stood and started to move towards the end of the bed, looking away from the kid. “So, I was talking to Toomes this morning, and he told be that he tried to kill you with a concrete roof. At first, I didn’t believe him, because _surely_ this is something you would have told me, but then I went to go see for myself, and sure enough, half of 132 Lombardy Street is rubble, and security cameras caught the whole thing on tape...” He looked back at Peter and trailed off.

The kid kept staring at the place where Tony had just been, his white knuckles gripping the blanket with enough force to rip the thing. The color had yet to return to his face.

Tony cautiously stepped towards him. “Kid?”

No reaction, but as Tony moved forward, he noticed how Peter’s hands were trembling and how shallow his breathing was.

His heart sank when he realized that he recognized what was happening.

He gently took one of Peter’s hands. “Kiddo, you’re not there anymore. You’re in the Compound. Just listen to me, all right? Focus on my voice. You’re not there.”

Peter’s breath hitched, and Tony brought the hand he was holding up to his own chest. “Breathe deep breaths. With me, ready? In...and out. Again. In...and out.” He forced himself to breathe at a snail’s pace, taking the time to fully inhale and exhale.

Slowly but surely, Peter’s breathing came back to normal, and a bit of color returned to his face. He had yet to look anywhere else, though.

“Name five things you can see,” Tony instructed, trying to pull Peter from his trance.

Peter’s eyes flitted around the room. “My hands...the blanket...the IV...the window and...you.”

“Four things you can feel,” Tony went on, ignoring the feeling of warmth that came when Peter mentioned him.

“The blanket...the IV needle...you, and the mattress.”

“Three things you can hear.”

Peter shut his eyes. “The IV, Dr. Cho and...Happy.”

Right, super senses. Should have seen that one coming.

“Two things you can smell.”

“Antiseptic and coffee.”

Tony caught sight of a mug that one of them must have left earlier on a nearby table. “All right. One thing you can taste.”

“Mint.”

Tony quirked his head to the side, taken aback. “Mint?”

“I brushed my teeth to get rid of the...um...ash and sand,” Peter mumbled. “Spearmint tastes better, I guess.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Tony remarked.

The room fell into silence, with Peter never daring to quite meet Tony’s eyes and Tony not being able to look anywhere else.

Tony gathered his thoughts and cleared his throat. “Kid, you’ve gotta tell me when this kind of stuff happens. It’s important so that my staff knows how to help, and so that it doesn’t spiral out of control and become a full-fledged anxiety attack.”

Peter froze. “Anxiety attack?”

“Probably with a touch of PTSD- hey.” Peter’s guilty gaze snapped up to Tony’s. “None of that,” Tony ordered. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. We all get it in this line of work. You work through it, you live with it. It’s an occupational hazard.”

“Even Thor?” Peter checked.

Tony paused. “Probably not Thor. Pretty sure he grew up fighting monsters, so that stuff doesn’t rattle him.”

“Oh.”

Tony deliberated with himself for a moment, trying to figure out what a ‘mentor-figure’ would do to uplift a protégé. “I had it, though.”

Peter looked surprised. “You?”

“Might still have it, at least a little bit,” Tony said. “I don’t know if it’s ever something you really get over. But that’s bravery: being scared out of your mind, but pushing it out of the way so that you can do what you need to. And Pete...” Tony put a hand on Peter’s good shoulder. “I haven’t met anyone as brave as you are.”

Peter’s face lit up again, his eyes gleaming with hope.

Tony breathed a sigh of relief. Take that, Howard. Positive reinforcement for the win.

“Thank you, Mr. Stark,” Peter said sincerely.

Tony ruffled the kid’s hair and stood. “Take your time and rest up, but don’t take forever. We still have those sensory-overload gadgets to throw together, and I don’t want to do anything without my best intern.”

Tony didn’t think it was possible, but Peter’s face lit up even further. “Me?”

* * *

 

 

By the time Happy had finished with the warehouse and had successfully determined what exactly went where (the fight for the alien tech between forensics and the Department of Damage Control almost turned violent), it was late at night. And so, with the hologram projectors Tony had left behind in one pocket, Happy returned back to the Compound to oversee lockdown.

The emergency medical staff members were the only non-security personnel besides the Avengers that were allowed to stay overnight, but apart from those three groups of employees, no ones else was supposed to be on the property. Since most people had already filed out of the buildings, lockdown merely involved a quick sweep of the building for heat signatures and a command for FRIDAY to shut the doors and windows.

A simple procedure, sure, but the Compound was ever-expanding and currently occupied a hundred-acre plot of land, so going from building to building actually took a good bit of time.

Eventually, he made it to the MedBay, surprised to find it without its teenaged occupant.

“FRIDAY,” Happy checked. “Peter hasn’t run off again, right?”

“ _Peter Parker is currently with the Boss in his workshop.”_

Happy could help but feel surprised. “His workshop?”

“ _That is what I said.”_

Happy ignored FRIDAY’s sass – Tony had programmed her to throw a bit in on occasion – and, having finished prepping the MedBay for lockdown, he made his way to the Avenger quarters next door, where Tony had his lab in the basement.

Tony’s lab was protected by multiple layers of security. First of all, only Avengers and their guests could even get into the building. Beyond that, only those that Tony granted specific access could come to the workshop.

The list of people allowed in used to be longer, but after the Sokovia Accords, the list was... _edited_.

Now, Tony only allowed Pepper, Rhodey, and Happy to enter. Vision wasn’t really given access, but seeing as how the android could phase through anything, security clearance wasn’t really a necessity.

Happy scanned his badge and the door to Tony’s workshop unlocked. Then, upon stepping inside, the first thing he noticed was the lack of classic rock music. Tony almost never worked in silence.

Tony caught sight of Happy while he was working on what looked like some sort of hearing aid. “Everything wrapped up at the warehouse?”

“Yeah,” Happy said, moving further into the room. “How did everything go with the kid?”

Tony mused for a moment, but nodded once. “Good. Yeah, I want to keep a closer eye on the kid, for at least a little while.”

“How come?” Happy took one of the seats near Tony.

“The whole Homecoming Fiasco might be sticking around for a bit, in a mental sort-of way,” Tony answered, looking over at the corner of the workshop, where an emergency nap sofa (courtesy of Pepper) was located. Happy followed his gaze and spotted a certain teenage superhero fast asleep, limbs akimbo.

Happy pointed at the kid. “Shouldn’t he be in the MedBay?”

Tony shrugged. “Yeah, I just wanted to take him out for a few hours. I’ll take him back soon.”

“I can take him,” Happy volunteered. “Couldn’t hurt to do another round for security anyways.”

Tony patted Happy’s shoulder. “What would I do without you, Hap?”

“Invite a terrorist over for Christmas,” Happy responded, not missing a beat. He stood as Tony chuckled to himself and he moved over towards Peter.

Gently, he prodded Peter awake. The teenager blinked sluggishly. “Happy?”

“Up you get, kid,” Happy ordered. “Doc wants to watch you for one more night. We need to get you back to the MedBay.”

Peter groaned as he sat up. “I’m fine. I don’t even feel anything-” He cut himself off when his eyes fell on Tony’s expression.

Tony stared at him. “Wanna try that again?”

“I-I mean, I feel it a little bit.”

“Damn right you do.”

“Maybe just one more night.”

“Uh huh.”

Happy cut in. “I think you’re getting evicted, kid. Come on, you’ll see him in the morning. It’s not like he’s going anywhere.”

Tony went back to tinkering. “I think I detected a bit of an attack there, but I’m going to ignore it.”

Happy guided Peter back towards the door, a hand solidly between the kid’s shoulders. The teen craned to look over his shoulder. “Goodnight, Mr. Stark.”

“Night, kid,” Tony called back.

Happy and Peter stepped out of the workshop and made their way over to the elevator, where Happy scanned his key and FRIDAY opened the doors for them.

“I haven’t said ‘thank you’, yet,” Peter said, glancing up at Happy.

Happy shook his head. “You don’t have to thank me for anything. I should be the one thanking you.”

Peter frowned, like he couldn’t possibly imagine why.

“If you hadn’t stopped the Vulture,” Happy started, “I probably wouldn’t have my job. That’s all you.”

Peter fought a smile and shrugged. “I don’t think Mr. Stark would ever fire you. You’re too good for that. What is it that people say-? ‘It’s so hard to find good help these days’ or something?” he said, switching into a deeper voice for effect in one part. He seemed to realize what he implied. “N-not that you’re help, Happy- I mean, you do help – you help a lot, actually – but you’re not The Help- I don’t even think Mr. Stark has The Help-”

“He does,” Happy interrupted, “but it’s not me.”

“Yeah,” Peter agreed. “That’s- That’s what I meant. Sort of.”

“It’s okay, kid,” Happy said, patting Peter’s back (gently, in case Peter was lying about not being in pain, which he almost certainly was). “I know what you meant.”

The elevator doors opened, and Happy started to guide Peter back towards the MedBay.

“I still want to say thanks, though,” Peter said as they walked. “And...sorry. I know I was probably a bit of a handful last night-”

“Kid, a toddler in a candy store is a handful,” Happy interrupted. “Last night was a nightmare.”

Peter sobered. “Sorry.”

“Just don’t scare Tony like that again,” Happy said. “He has heart trouble, you know.”

The inside joke did not include Peter, who immediately turned serious. “Oh, yeah. Right.” He paused. “How can I make it up to him?”

“Tell me the next time you get hurt,” Happy instructed, “but for now, go to _sleep_.” He gave Peter a playful push at the doors of the MedBay. “You remember which room’s yours, right?”

“Uh- yeah. Yeah, I do,” Peter answered, but he made no move to keep walking. He just stood there, looking over his shoulder into the MedBay.

Suddenly, he turned back to Happy and threw his arms around him. Happy stumbled back a pace, surprised to suddenly find himself with his arms full of teenager.

“Thank you,” Peter said, his voice muffled in Happy’s blazer.

Happy returned the hug in a brief squeeze. “Don’t mention it, kid.”

Peter pulled back and Happy ruffled his hair, eliciting a mildly perturbed look from the kid. “Don’t...do that.”

“I won’t if you’re sleeping,” Happy agreed. “Go on. Get going.”

The kid nodded and started down the hallway. “Night, Happy.”

“Night,” Happy returned, watching Peter as he moved further along until he finally reached his room and closed the door.

Distantly, a clock was still ticking.

Satisfied, Happy turned back and moved to one of FRIDAY’s manual access points. He swiped his keycard, entered the access code, and enabled lockdown on the peacefully quiet Compound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FIRST: THANK YOU to everyone who commented on my last chapter! I cried you guys are so kind. <3 I am going to try and respond to everyone but I just wanted to say that, across the board, I have never received so much encouragement, and I've been writing fanfiction for 5+ years. Thank you all. So much.
> 
> This thing took me half a month to write, and an extra month to revise and edit. I really tried to make it as good as the first chapter but...I dunno. I tried. :)
> 
> I also just finished my AP Research project (American Ideals in Captain America and Iron Man - yes, it was legit), so some of that bled through a little bit in the conversation with Toomes. I tried to keep it out guys but it just sorta happened.
> 
> If you guys are interested in any of my future projects, (first of all thank you <3) I am working on a 5+1 where Tony and Peter both survive the Snap, a sort-of Monster AU that is turning into a monster fic, and an attempt at Venom being in the MCU planned for October.
> 
> Yell at me on tumblr! pechoraflow.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Iron Dad fic that I've posted, and I'm honestly very nervous about it. I tried to get it as close to canon as I could?
> 
> Let me know how I did in the comments! They make my day :D


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